The East Coast Game Conference went well last week (so did Pixelfest, for that matter), and Solanimus finally showed Signal to Noise to event attendees with the live music from Eight Bit Disaster at the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh NC! The game analyzed the music in realtime as it was being played on stage and then affected the game right there in front of everyone’s eyes. The whole thing turned out great, and I want to shout-out/thank Tom Klingler, my uncle, for his help in getting it all to happen. Of course, thanks to Eight Bit Disaster as well!

John Romero (Dangerous Dave, Commander Keen, Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, Gunman Taco Truck, etc.) did his keynote and it was cool to say the least. It was mostly about the early days of id Software along with programming principles they followed during that time (and some before and after id). I was the only person in the audience that had seen one of the photos in the presentation and that made me laugh. I also talked with him later on in the evening and he said he remembered me from GDC two years back and that we had talked about Ms. Pac-Man for like half an hour. That also made me laugh because his memory is so ridiculous!

The talk I did on Thursday morning, “Creating Something from Nothing” turned out pretty well, had a pretty full room, and some pretty good questions afterwards. I believe it’s recorded, but not sure yet where the recordings will be organized.

By the way, Friday the 13th The Game will be coming out on May 26th so you should totally like play it like crazy. We have multiple friends that have worked a lot on that game and it’s going to rock your socks off… and maybe your head too (see what I did there) Hopefully there will still be another Solanimus blog post before then, but just wanted to mention it either way.

There were (obviously) some roadblocks with the porting of Signal to Noise involving some engine issues that have now been fixed in Unity. The animator, Daniel, is now checking and fixing animations that may have broken in the conversion to the updated version of Unity. Once that is completed, I’ll be able to continue with where I was in the porting for macOS and other systems.

Pixelfest is this coming weekend in Virginia. We’ll be driving up there in the morning and are showing Signal to Noise. We were hoping to have another something to show, but being spread thin on contract work has prevented that from happening fast enough. You’ll see our latest work soon enough, though!

Also looking forward to ECGC later this month. Solanimus will of course be showing there. One thing in the works is something we’ve never done with Signal to Noise before in public, but once that gets confirmed to be happening I’ll post about it on here. I’ll be speaking this year at the conference in a talk called Creating Something From Nothing. It’s mostly about the nature of starting a game company with no experience or money as well as game design itself. If any of that interests you, be sure to come at 10:15 on the 20th (time may get changed so make sure to check the schedule)! Nathan, former intern at Solanimus, is doing a talk as well, so be sure to check his out too.

Construct 3 is in beta at the moment, and is looking pretty cool. I’ve recommended Construct 2 to many people before starting out in game development, and Construct 3 looks to be a worthy successor!

I suppose I could talk about some contract work we’ve been doing lately. I’ll think about it.

Yes, Solanimus will of course be at Playthrough Gaming Convention this weekend in Raleigh NC. Come on by and show us how pro you are at Signal to Noise, and if you’re playing in the melee tournament (being held by the Carolina Games Summit at Playthrough) I (David) hope to see you there as well because I plan on playing too!

Anyone following the progression of Signal to Noise is probably aware at this point that we took a long time last year to fix problems that we found were affecting players. The game is much better now in the eyes of many, and we’re moving ahead with porting to other platforms. It looks like the first port out will be for macOS, and we plan to have that ready and available on Steam, GameJolt Marketplace and IndieGameStand by the time Playthrough Gaming Convention comes around later in the month.

After the macOS port, Linux follows, but depending on how problematic finalizing that shows itself to be, the Linux port may be stopped at least temporarily, as we’re planning for mobile next (iOS and Android). More details on the mobile versions will come as we get closer to their release.

In case you hadn’t seen it on twitter or whatever I had put it on, Signal to Noise got 2nd place in Excellence in Game Development at SIEGE 2016. Woo!

Our main location for Solanimus is in the same building as Limited Run Games and Mighty Rabbit Studios in Apex NC, however our mailing address is remaining the same, as we’re still members in Fuquay Varina at Fuquay Coworking.

Tonight the new Pokemon games are coming out (Sun & Moon), and some of the Solanimus team will be at the related event at the mall in Cary. We’re not involved with organizing the event, we’re just going there excited about the new games! I’m still most likely getting my copy in Fuquay though, because Fuquay’s Gamestop needs people too. For reference: I’m getting Sun.

The NES Classic Edition came out last week, and we’ve played one of the ones Josh, president at Mighty Rabbit, got here in the office. I totally did a speedrun on Super Mario Bros. 1! Chris from Mighty Rabbit came in the room when I had started it, and when he came back like 5 minutes later the game was done. I haven’t gotten my NES Classic Edition yet (as you may know, the scarcity is a bit of an issue), but plan to get one because my NES takes several minutes to get working these days and that’s sad.

We have a Playstation VR set here at the office as well. Some may remember that I was one of the first to play it at GDC a couple of years ago, when it was being called Project Morpheus. I still haven’t yet played Rez Infinite though…

As for our development on things at Solanimus:

Porting Signal to Noise

Prototyping some games

Contract software work

Other Miscellaneous R&D

…Well that’s what I’ve got today. Got to get back to some other things.

David here. I’m currently setting up for SIEGE 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia. I took a trip to stay with my aunt and uncle a couple of weeks ago, and found out about the gaming event happening October 7-9 nearby. I immediately signed up, and am displaying Signal to Noise in the Indie Cluster. Lots of nice people here so far, and the setup time hasn’t even ended!

By the way, Signal to Noise now has a DRM-free version on IndieGameStand. If you’ve been waiting until you don’t have to succumb to Steam in order to play Signal, now’s the time!

As for what Solanimus has been up to: moving ahead with projects, and happily observing those that are enjoying the update to Signal to Noise. Soon we’re planning to release on other marketplaces, and are currently performing ports to other systems.

Hello! We’ve updated Signal to Noise on Steam and have given the largest discount yet set to begin with the Steam Summer Sale! This update is the result of going through everything that has been said about the game that we could find in order to make it the best we can, and then going beyond that. Please feel free to check it out when you get a chance, and we hope you enjoy it. We are continuing to work on the game alongside other things, and are porting to other systems.

Huge thanks to everyone that’s been supporting us. As always, if anyone has problems with the game, you can always contact us. We’re here to help.

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Solanimus News

I normally stay fairly focused on the Solanimus activities (it is the company website after all), but today I’m talking a bit about something else for Video Games Day today. When I was really little, I didn’t play video games. It was my brother that got me into games. My father, the graphic artist, had already […]

Hello!! David here as always. Just wanted to give a quick update today on what’s been in the works at Solanimus! We had fun in the Limited Run Games and Mighty Rabbit Studios building in Apex NC and made progress, but we’re making internal changes that made it so it wouldn’t be beneficial really for […]

The East Coast Game Conference went well last week (so did Pixelfest, for that matter), and Solanimus finally showed Signal to Noise to event attendees with the live music from Eight Bit Disaster at the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh NC! The game analyzed the music in realtime as it was being played on stage and […]

There were (obviously) some roadblocks with the porting of Signal to Noise involving some engine issues that have now been fixed in Unity. The animator, Daniel, is now checking and fixing animations that may have broken in the conversion to the updated version of Unity. Once that is completed, I’ll be able to continue with where […]

Industry News

I normally stay fairly focused on the Solanimus activities (it is the company website after all), but today I’m talking a bit about something else for Video Games Day today. When I was really little, I didn’t play video games. It was my brother that got me into games. My father, the graphic artist, had already […]

The East Coast Game Conference went well last week (so did Pixelfest, for that matter), and Solanimus finally showed Signal to Noise to event attendees with the live music from Eight Bit Disaster at the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh NC! The game analyzed the music in realtime as it was being played on stage and […]

There were (obviously) some roadblocks with the porting of Signal to Noise involving some engine issues that have now been fixed in Unity. The animator, Daniel, is now checking and fixing animations that may have broken in the conversion to the updated version of Unity. Once that is completed, I’ll be able to continue with where […]

Playthrough went really well in Raleigh. Got to see High Heeled Gamer again, the original interviewer from Escapist Expo when we showed Signal to Noise there! That was before the game was even controlled like Tempest, so it had changed a lot. Then the Nintendo Switch! I had a place in line at the gamestop […]